Eternal Great World, Canglan Domain, Great Xia Dynasty.
The great hall of the Ye Family, where activity and laughter once used to resonate through the peals of numerous family members, was ominously silent, heavy with sorrow and foreboding. A shroud had hovered around the Ye Family's ancestral home due to a tragedy so catastrophic that it had afflicted the elite family.
Ye Wushang was just one step past adolescence, sitting in his courtyard, locking himself out as calamity news from within his family drained deep into his soul. He was barely four days since returning to the world of life and memories, which were joined with visions of miraculous, high-tech rooms and a loneliness that actually bled from the cracked walls. Immersed in the most precarious fate and passion for sowing, he was thrust into the furthest extreme of loss of identity and belonging.
Ye Batian, mighty and great leader of the House of Ye, set out on a new journey to a newly discovered mysterious land thought to hold the secret to unimaginable potency. He had brought with him to the land the best promise of their family's line, taking two elder brothers of Ye Wushang and leaving only whispers for hope, a legacy built upon ambition. But hope, like the flickering candle of one, can so easily be snuffed out.
And such tidings came with the dawn, borne on one solitary, spent messenger, his robes tattered and his countenance set with a grange of sorrow and fear. The expedition had come to disaster. A spatial anomaly, unguessed and pitiless, had rent through the hidden realm's core, leaving ruin and desolation in its wake. From these who had dared to venture into the unknown, only a few faintly emerged carrying stories of unimaginable horror, lugging along the burden of their friends who did not survive.
Of all this, Kao Tian's sources told nothing; nor was Ye Wushang to be seen among his troops, and like a serpent crawling up the tree went into the heart where it coiled around, squeezing the life out of his hope and ruing it with a grip of icy despair. He was alone, lost without anchor in a world that seemed alien and unkind already. For now, though, he was the last son of the Ye family, the legacy now thrust upon his still-unproven shoulders.
A bitter laugh escaped his lips at the cruel irony of his situation. In the past life, he had craved what eluded him like a phantom limb Ðconnection, a sense of belonging. And now, in this world, reborn into one that treasured family and lineage above all else, he was severed from those exact things that he yearned for all along.
But when he sat there quietly to think, something strange overpowered him. A tingling started somewhere inside the bottom of his skull and spread its way outward, filling every inch of his body with it. His eyes dimmed, and his ears were bombarded with a deafening whine that, apparently, began from within the head itself. Panic rose to strangle his senses inside him.
Then, just as suddenly as it started, the feeling was gone. He blinked, and his vision cleared, the ringing in his ears replaced by the gentle rustling of leaves in the courtyard. Had he imagined the whole episode? Had grief finally pushed him over the edge, his mind conjuring tricks on his beleaguered senses?
**"[System initializing…]"**
The voice, a steely voice devoid of human warmth, cut through the silence like a shard of ice. Ye Wushang stood there, paralysed, his mind reeling. That voice… had not come from where he was. It came from *within* his own mind, echoing within the depths of his consciousness.
**"[System integration complete. Multi-Child Multi-Fu System at your service.] "**[/]
**"Host detected. Commencing aptitude assessment…"**
A babble of words, a jumble of bizarre phrases and concepts threatened to consume his head, too much to consume. System? Host? Aptitude evaluation? What did it all mean? Was this some warped prodigy of his former life, some bleeding-edge technology bleeding over into this strange new world?
" Aptitude assessment complete. Luck: Average, Talent: Below Average, Special Qualities: None. General Rating: Human."
**"Warning: Host aptitude is woefully deficient. System function is severely limited. In order to engage advanced functionality and maximize opportunities for survival, it is strongly advised that the host reproduce offspring with high potential for cultivation.".
As the final words of the system's declaration disappeared into the air, Ye Wushang couldn't help but feel angered. Mortal? His aptitude was considered *mortal*? The system didn't think much of him, it seemed.
And what was this idiocy about siring an heir? He was hardly more than a boy himself and had just been plunged into a succession he hadn't requested. The burden of the House of Ye was heavy enough without adding to it the pressure of siring an heir for some mythical breeding project in the cosmos.
He shook his head, trying to clear out the lingering numbness and bewilderment. This system, whatever it was, seemed determined to interfere with his life. But Ye Wushang was no stranger to adversity. He had overcome adversities and defied expectations in a past life, and he refused to let his life be defined by some disembodied voice in his head.
He had family to rebuild, a legacy to live up to. He would plot his plan of attack, with guile and courage, and the reverberations of wisdom gleaned from a life lived and lost. The system, if it was worth it, could ride his coattails. If not, he would invent a way to close that infernal buttonholing of pronouncements shut and forge his own lot in this world of cultivation.